TWO PATHS DIVERGED IN 1789:

Love to hate you: a review of Uncouth Nation: why Europe dislikes America by Andrei S Markovits (Mary Fitzgerald, 2/12/07, New Statesman)

Markovits argues that anti-Americanism is not a recent phenomenon, linked solely to the actions of the Bush administration. Rather, it has been around since 1492. Citing a broad body of work, from philosophers, artists, ethnographers, politicians, historians and journalists, he claims that Europe's ruling class feared America's "castrating" power long before it grew into an 800-pound "gorilla", and did everything in their power to denigrate it. In the words of Martin Heidegger, America has always been seen as a "soulless, greedy inauthentic force".

Markovits's research is wide-ranging and deep, and he writes with clarity, precision and insight. While his reading of history may be a little one-sided, he turns the looking glass on to Europe in some interesting ways. Modern anti-Americanism, he argues, has become the key (and only) building block of an "emotionally experienced" Europe. What else do Europeans really have in common? It is a continent divided by culture, language and history, unable to agree on a constitution. Yet, on the subject of America, there is unprecedented, voluntary, "democratic" conformity in opinion. It is a unifying creed: one that crosses social, political, economic and racial divides.

Unfortunately, the rest of Markovits's argument lacks nuance. He often divides contemporary Europe into outdated ideological epi- thets - "left" and "right" - and makes sweeping statements such as "European intellectuals embraced Bill Clinton wholeheartedly as a kindred spirit".

Worse still, he lurches off down a ludicrous path when he tries to equate popular anti-American sentiment (a visible fact) with European "hatred" of "Jews/Israelis" (a crude and inaccurate term). He cites criticism of Israel in the European press, and isolated threats made to Jewish organisations, as evidence of a "Europe-wide hatred with a pedigreed history".

Her resistance to his insight doesn't make it wrong. America is hated for exactly the same reason as Israel, because it represents the culture that Europe has rejected. God's people stand as a rebuke to the secular.

Posted by Orrin Judd at February 8, 2007 7:43 AM